Pictures of You
by SnowboundMermaid
Summary: Barney never takes a bad picture, but some of them tell stories he might not have intended to share.
1. Beautiful Boy

It wouldn't be stealing, not really. There's a blue sticky dot on the back of the picture frame, with a capitol B, very clearly written in permanent marker, in a steady hand. B for Barney. Robin is his wife. He endowed her with all his worldly goods in front of God and the State of New York and everybody, including the now dearly departed Grandma Stinson -Mary; she'd asked Robin to call her Mary, the first time Robin offered her a swig from the flask in her purse- who would, undoubtedly, understand. It is, however, technically stealing, because she has no intention of actually giving the picture to Barney. This one is hers.

She could drop it into her purse, not the banker's box, also marked with a prominent B, that holds the other blue-stickered items. Everything is color-coded and marked with the proper initial, to ensure there will be no confusion. Blue dots with B are for Barney. Red dots with J are for James. Yellow dots with L are Loretta. Anything else has a green dot with a number that corresponds to the list on Sam's clipboard. No questions, no mistakes.

It's only the three of them in the room: Robin, Tom, and Sam, the spouses, one relation removed from the immediacy of the loss. Barney is at work, because he needs the logic and order of numbers and spreadsheets and mindless paperwork to balance the raw emotion. James and the kids are at the new Disney movie. They'll see it twice, because he needs to laugh, sing the songs along with the kids on the way home, make new memories. Loretta doesn't want to see anybody today; not Sam, not James, not Barney. She needs to be alone. Robin gets that. Respects it. The nursing home -no, Robin corrects herself, the private care facility; there's a difference- understands the family's loss, but they do need to turn over the room for the next occupant, and so the three of them are here, on a rainy Thursday afternoon, to take home what's left. Robin fluffs the pillow and smooths the case, out of habit. This is a new pillow. Mary's head never rested here. Robin gives the new pillow a pat anyway. It's ritual now.

She, Tom and Sam check in with each other -how their spouses are doing, how the kids are doing, how they're doing- while they strip the room and pass along appropriately-stickered objects. Tom passes her a hardcover biography of Harry Houdini , over the back of the chair Leslie's husband will pick up after three. Sam slides a battered pack of playing cards that look like a pack of Lucky Strikes across the bare mattress. Mary Stinson was a weird old lady. Kind of a badass, too. Robin is going to miss her, mostly for the Barney stories. She sets the book and the cards in the bottom of the box and moves on to the nightstand. Three romance novels: two old, with yellowed pages, one new, its pages crisp and white, all three with yellow dots on the spine. These are for Loretta. Robin stacks them and puts them in Sam's box, then moves on to the forest of picture frames that crowd the lamp and tissue box into a far corner.

The lacy white frame has Sam and Loretta's wedding picture; that's for Sam. Baby James grins a mile wide from a shiny gold frame, one rattle clutched in each fist. She passes that one to Tom, who smiles, shakes his head, and adds it to his box. Three photographs of other relatives, she stacks and puts aside for Sam to sort. The tarnished silver frame, she leaves for last, because, well, it's weird.

It's Barney, fresh out of the box. His face is red and squishy, blue eyes unfocused, mouth already at a half slant. He's about fifty percent forehead, with sticky-out ears and a floofy baby mohawk. His first outfit is yellow terrycloth, one of the white cuffs already patched, because James had it first. Blank slate Barney, before the world did anything to him. Before he did anything to it.

She traces over the shape of his head with the tip of one finger. She's glad she doesn't have to worry about squeezing one of those out of her lady parts, but she can't shut off the what if that always hits her every time she lays eyes on this picture. Not just the mental editing of the picture -though there is that; switch the yellow terrycloth for slate gray Egyptian cotton, darken the hair, pinch in the nose, maybe nudge the chin a little- but everything else that led up to the Barney she loves.

What if Mary hadn't thought this baby looked like her favorite uncle -who died in the war; Robin could never get more out of Mary than that- and offered to sign the house over to Loretta if she named the baby Barney, after him. Where would he have grown up if Loretta had named him Michael, like she'd planned before Mary pointed out the resemblance? What if Michael Stinson grew up somewhere else, into somebody else? She can't figure out if he would have been Mike or Mickey or always Michael, and she doesn't want to know. It's moot. He's Barney, her Barney, and this picture, that's where he started being Barney, and that's why she has to have it. She checks over her shoulder.

Tom and Sam's heads bend, together, over Sam's clipboard. Tom flips to the second page and points, she guesses, to a number. Sam adjusts his glasses, points to another one. Robin drops the picture into her purse. It's not stealing, not really.


	2. Held Captive to His Wonder

_Fourth of July 2009. Robin. Barney_. Lily's handwriting spools, in permanent marker, across the back of the photograph, the address of Ted's old building printed beneath it. Robin doesn't know how this picture made it into the folder of notes she brought for an assignment half the world and a handful of years away from that night on Ted's roof, but she knows what picture this is, even without looking at the image itself. It's burned into her consciousness. They'd been careful, so very careful, that whole secret summer, to keep what they had between them quiet, keep it only theirs, and the one time -the one time- Barney's hand rested on the curve of her hip, for half a second, Lily caught it on camera.

Not that it shows, not much. There's a table borrowed from LIly's classroom between Lily and them, with a whole watermelon in the way, a bottle of Captain Morgan, Lily's three-tiered red, white, and blue cupcake tower with the sparkly foil star cluster on top. Nobody would have been looking at Barney's hands, anyway, not with the fireworks that burst over the city skyline. They'd all been looking at the fireworks, the star-shaped explosions of red and blue, with the plumes of white, brilliant against the dark sky above city lights. Anybody could have slippped under those conditions.

Ted stands to the right of the frame, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched. No Stella, no Lucy; they're somewhere else, with Tony, but he's Ted, and it's a holiday, and he's going to do this. Marshall, fully in the moment, has a rocket pop in one hand, red plastic cup full of punch in the other, his newly-invented splashdown cocktail. Take one rocket pop, and one plastic cup filled with punch consisiting of random fruit juices and rum. Dip pop in punch. Lick pop. Repeat until pop and/or punch are gone. Rocket ship noises optional. The debate over whether said rocket ship noises are entertaining or annoying is now a Fourth of July tradition.

Lily had warned them all in advance to act as though she wasn't even there. They should act natural. If she and Barney were going to act natural around each other that night, they would have ended up using one of the reclining lawn chairs for an activity the manufacturers never intended. That's how it was with them that summer, blissful and undefined, no labels, no expectations, only the exploration of what the two of them were when they were together. More than sex, not yet love, but something entirely theirs, contained in a bubble of something she still can't define.

The memory of that summer tastes like spiked lemonade and ballpark hot dogs, smells like sunblock, and blows through her consciousness like the wind through her hair as they drove to Far Rockaway in a rented convertible on a Thursday afternoon. That's how it was, then. A phone call, an email, an invitation to play hooky, find someplace where nobody knew either of them, no plans, no agendas, only her and him and whatever fun, stupid thing happened next.

 _Robin_. _Barney_. No _and_. No ampersand linking them together. Only their names, only two friends, two bros, celebrating the birth of America. They'd agreed, ahead of time, that they weren't going to touch each other, that day, not even in passing. Touching would have been too much of a risk, like waving a lit match around dry kindling, and so they hadn't, to such an extent that she'd started to wonder if that wasn't too suspicious. Who doesn't touch, ever? People trying to make a point of how little they touch, because they're touching all the damn time, that's who. She turns the picture over.

She can't see Barney's hand, but she can feel it, even now, for that split second it rested on her hip, that sliver of time he drew her next to him before they both remembered and sprang apart. His head is tilted back here, mouth open, eyes wide and rounded because he's a little kid around fireworks, even with an open bottle of beer in his other hand. She remembers the catch of breath in his throat when the first colors bloomed in the sky, a second before he reached for her, out of pure instinct, no thought involved.

His shirt is red, white and blue check, small enough to be subtle, to count as solid, even though it isn't. It's clothing subterfuge, and it fits him. Fits them, that summer. He has two buttons open at the throat, sleeves rolled back to the elbows, as close to casual wear as he's going to get. She has a thing for watching him roll back his sleeves; unbutton cuff, fold sleeve halfway back, halfway again, small sliver of cuff visible because he isn't an animal. She thinks she first saw him -first noticed him- doing the sleeve thing on a park bench in Brooklyn, not even looking at what he was doing, because he was too involved in the story he was telling her. Something about work. She doesn't remember now, becuse all her memory went into the sleeve thing, the gold hair on his forearms, the flex of muscle beneath. There's no picture of that, because she didn't know she wanted one, but it's burned into her, lurking beneath the surface of this one.

Robin hasn't seen that look, that _man_ , for longer than she cares to admit. It was another life, she tries to convince herself, that summer, before they grew up. Before they defined the relationship. Before they broke up. Before Don and Nora and Kevin and Quinn. Before engagement stuff and wedding stuff and marriage stuff and dead grandparents and conflicting career paths and strained silences and heated arguments and her taking this assignment so they can each have time to think. She's done thinking. She sets down the photograph and picks up her phone, jabs one finger on his contact button, even though they weren't going to talk for a couple of days.

Barney picks up so fast that he had to have the phone on him, even at this hour. "Robin?" His voice slurs, from sleep, not drink.

"Did I wake you?"

"Yeah?" A question, not a statement, as though he's not sure of the answer even as he gives it. He clears his throat. "Are you okay?" His words are slow, measured cautious.

She fixes her sights on Secret Summer Barney's arm , wrapped around her waist, behind watermelon and Captain Morgan and the tower of cupcakes. On the pure, infectious wonderment on his face, all the constraints of adult life stripped away. Her heart clenches. She needs that. Needs him. "Did you," she forces the next words past the fear that would hold them back. "Did you put any pictures in my research folder?"

There's a pause before he answers, and she imagines him sitting up in bed, turning on the lamp next to the -his? their?- bed, adjusting the pillows as he shifts from laying to sitting. "Um, no? Did you," he pauses, as though he's trying to wrap his mind around where the hell she's going with this, "want pictures?" Of what, he doesn't ask, and she isn't about to answer, because she doesn't know how.

"Can you come out here?" she asks at last, before she can ruin it all by thinking. "Fly out. I'll rent a car. We can drive back."

Barney is quiet, at first. Breath whooshes out of his lungs. There's a cough. The mattress creaks. One foot hits the floor, then the other. "Why?"

Her heart pounds. They'll talk. Of course they'll talk. Later. They'll talk and they'll yell, and she'd bet money that, at least once, one of them is going to leave the other on the side of the road, maybe at some creepy gas station, then turn around and come back. They'll talk about that, probably sitting on the hood of their rental car, him watching the sunset, her watching him roll his sleeves, but first they have to not-talk. They have to put the top down and crank the radio, sing along when they don't know the words. Stop for roadside soft-serve. Miss the exit. Find a detour. Find each other again, no outside influence, no outside opinion. "Road trip," is all she says.

"Okay."


	3. Halfway From the Bottom

"Halfway From the Bottom and Halfway From the Top"

"It's not a picture of Ted." Robin always has to explain that. Sure, Ted is in the picture. It's taken at his house, on his birthday, true. Even Barney commented on the excellent fit of the argyle sweater vest Tracy's Nonna knitted for the occasion, but he'd had to point it out to Robin. Explain it, even, with illustrations and measurements, which was more information than she needed. The sweater vest is the whole reason she's showing Tracy the picture, anyway. Nonna needed a picture of what the pattern looked like before Ted went five rounds with one ticked-off Maine Coon who did not want to get in the carrier. Robin remembered she had this one -though moving it to a different folder might have been in her better interests- and here they are.

She guesses, if she were into that kind of thing, which she hasn't been, for going on double digit years now, that she did happen to capture the elusive life form that is a good Ted Mosby hair day, in its natural environment, but it's not a picture of Ted. She would know. She 's the one who took this particular picture, and she knew exactly what she was doing in taking it. Explaining that to Ted's fiancee, though, and why that particular picture is stored in a folder marked 'personal,' that's going to be...complicated.

"Are you sure?" Tracy asks, eyes wider and rounder than usual. She tucks a stray curl behing her ear and peers closer at Robin's screen. "Because the only other explanation is that Ted has an identical twin brother I've never heard about, whom you also dated, still have a thing for, and like to, um," Tracy pauses here, lower lip held between her teeth, "remember when you're, ah, away on assignment."

Robin presses the screen to her chest, to sheild the image. "It's not a picture of Ted, I promise. It's a picture of Barney."

Tracy hooks one finger over the edge of the phone, a hairsbreadth away from the scooped neck of Robin's silk blouse, and eases the image back into view. "Barney isn't even in this picture."

The twin brother explanation might actually be easier. _You're right. That's Tad. We don't talk about Tad. Tad disgraced the family. He's a criminal. A drug dealer. A serial killer. He stole that sweater. I am sorry you had to find out this way._ What she says, after a pause long enough to feel more than slightly incriminating, is, "his face isn't."

Tracy's face scrunches. "His face isn't? Then what?"

Robin zooms in to the upper left corner of the screen. There isn't much visible of Barney, at least not above the waist. He's standing halfway up a paint-splattered wooden ladder, maybe more than that, and, even as tall as he is, still has to rise on the balls of his feet to reach the drooping garland, arms raised above his head. Gray flannel drapes over hips, haunches, thighs -especially haunches- accents the stretch and bunch of muscle, the view unimpeded by his suit jacket, draped over the arm of the sofa. "Piece. Of. Art." She angles the screen for Tracy's inspection.

There's a quiet moment as Tracy leans in closer. Cocks her head. "Oh wow."

Robin's mouth curves in appreciation. "I know, right? That is one part raw material, one part fine Italian tailoring, and one part years of laser tag, the likes of which are only achieved by the most dedicated of professionals."

Tracy's eyes narrow. "I am going to preface this with the disclaimer that I am not creeping on your husband, but is he even wearing-"

"Boxer briefs. Custom made. He has a guy." Robin lingers a moment before zooming back out to encopass the entire frame. "I keep meaning to crop it, but I get, um," There really aren't any lines, not a single one, even with the lightweight wool pulled taut over firm flesh. "Distracted," she finishes with a shrug. "You know how it is."

Tracy responds with a knowing smile. "Nothing wrong with appreciating what you've got."

"Or what _he's_ got," Robin adds, with a quick swipe back for another look. "Want me to crop it for Nonna?"

There's a pause before Tracy answers. "I'll take just the Ted part, but Nonna's had a rough year, with Nonno and all. Think Barney would mind if you sent the whole thing? Would you mind? I know it's a weird request, but -"

Robin waves away Tracy's concern. She copies the picture to Tracy's email. _This_ picture is fine. No way in hell Tracy or her Nonna are getting anything from the super-private subfolder.


	4. In This or Another Lifetime

Third row from the top, four slots from the left, wedged between _Time_ and _People_ , the white-on-red masthead of _Newsiverse_ magazine catches Robin's eye the second she approaches the newsstand. It's her fifth of the day. Two on the way to work, one at lunch, two on the way home. She snatches a twenty from her purse and hands it, over the counter, to the teenaged attendant, whose head bobs in time to the music on his headphones. He's not going to recognize her. Not going to make a fuss. Her stomach calms. The nervous energy that propelled her for the last two blocks dissipates. She points past the double row of chocolate bars and breath mints. "Can I get _Newsiverse_ , please?"

The attendant's hand, still holding her twenty, pushes one earphone away from his ear. Hooded brown eyes look her up and down from underneath a battered baseball cap. "Need to see ID."

Robin lets out a huff. "It's a news magazine. It's not porn."

"Nude-i-verse." He sounds out the word and holds out one palm, wiggles his fingers. "Need ID."

She doesn't need this aggravation, but she does need the magazine. It strikes her now, that she could have asked for it at work, sent an intern out to pick up a copy, asked someone at the magazine to send it over. Her luck, it was in the giant pile of papers Patrice dumped on her desk after lunch. "No. No ID. _Newsiverse_. Like universe of news. It's right over your left shoulder. " She has not ruled out climbing over the counter, grabbing her twenty back and getting the magazine herself. There's only one copy left. That means it's selling. Good for _Newsiverse_. Good for Calvin. She'll know if it's good for anybody else - specifically her and Barney- when she actually has a copy in hand. It proabably is on her desk, right this second, but she'll never beat Barney home if she goes back to get it now. She is not going through one more minute of watching him stare at the plastic-wrapped advance copy that's been on their coffee table for two days. It ends here.

The attendant turns in a slow quarter-circle, as though he's only now noticed the rack behind him. Synthpop leaks from his out-of-place earphone. He pinches _Time_ first, teases her with it, then does the same with _People_. He flexes, actually flexes, before he plucks _Newsiverse_ from the rack, like that's going to impress her or something. Like it's going to impress anybody. This kid isn't even old enough to be selling porn and cigarettes.

 _Cigarettes_. "And a pack of menthol - um, I mean butterscotch Lifesavers."

Those, the kid can find on his first try. Figures. He makes change. Sets the magazine on the counter. Deposits candy and change on top of the glossy blues, blacks and grays of the cover. Adds a pack of Chuckles. Winks. Pushes it all a milimeter further in her direction. "Bag?"

She shakes her head. "I'm good, thanks." Tilts the magazine into her open purse and brushes the other items inside. She'll sort it out later. Right now, all her attention is focused on the cover image. Barney, gray suit, blue shirt, striped tie, arms crossed. A slingshot dangles from one hand, one brow raised, mouth at that quarter slant that does things to her, even in pictures. Behind him, the C in the AltruCell logo has been reduced to a pile of rubble, a shot of Greg Fisher's blank face as the judge pronounced sentence ghosted behind it. Not subtle, but good. Sets up the story readers -or the story's subject- can expect to find inside. She checks the table of contents, then flips to the appropriate page.

 _Make it good, Calvin. You promised._ That was the deal. Calvin Conners got an exclusive interview with the man who brought down AltruCell, in exchange for a fair and accurate portrayal. The real story, not the GNB company line. Robin takes one deep breath and focuses all her attention on the page. Her stomach drops. This isn't the right picture. This isn't any of the images she sent Calvin, isn't anything his photographer shot in their living room or Barney's office? Where's the feet-up-on-the-desk pose, hands behind his head? Where's the at-home shot with open collar and sleeves rolled back? The thoughtful shot of Barney on the balcony, staring out at the city lights and the setting sun?

The Barney who stares back at Robin from the frame of his first AltruCell ID is young; impossibly young. His suit coat doesn't fit right. It's too loose in the shoulders. The knot of his tie is off-center, and too tight. There's a nick on his chin, to the right of the cleft, red against pale skin. Blond hair, newly cut, falls over his forehead and sticks up at the crown. It doesn't know which way to lie yet. She fights the urge to smooth it back, because that wouldn't do any good. This isn't _him_. It's a picture. Only a picture, taken over fifteen years ago. If this picture were a kid, it could drive a car. Join the military, next year, if they signed for it. Get married without parental permission, even, but the eyes, dammit, they get to her.

These eyes have no lines around them, because nobody has lines at twenty-three, but they're reddened, with purple smudges beneath. He hadn't slept the night before. Hadn't known, either, how to conceal the evidence; he's learned, since. Can turn the charm on and off like a light switch whenever he wants. She hates knowing exactly how he got to that point, but it still impresses the crap out of her, how he does it. This kid had none of that. The expression, though, that's what hits her the hardest. His heart is broken. Behind the facade, which, she has to admit, in a totally objective sort of way, is not at all that convincing, all he is, is a dumb twentysomething who wants his girl back. Who has no idea what he did wrong, no idea what he's getting into, but plows ahead anyway, because maybe, maybe, he can do...something. These days, he usually has more of a plan than that.

She flips back to the cover, to the gold band on the hand that holds the slingshot, crinkles about eyes and mouth. Back again to the kid trying to hold his broken heart together with a poorly executed Windsor knot. Folds the cover, careful not to crease it, so that both pictures stand side by side...ish. There's a difference here, beyond age, beyond a more muscular physique, beyond a good stylist, beyond a corner office. Hell, beyond a wedding ring that was the farthest thing from that shell-shocked kid's mind, unless that ring would be on Shannon's finger. Shannon, whose arm drapes around nineteen-year-old Barney's skinny shoulder in grainy black and white, off in a sidebar. Shannon, whose presence made Barney, half a lifetime ago, glow like he was lit from the inside. Shannon, whose last name made Barney stiffen by the barest degree when the bailiff called it, because that name was different from the one he knew. Shannon, who declined to comment for this article.

Calvin's words blur. _Staten Island native_... _former barista, who still makes a mean espresso._ That, accompanied by a shot of Barney with the espresso machine on their kitchen counter. Baney didn't want to take that one. He thought it would be cheesy. It was, but it fit. He does. She could use one right about now. _Would-be Peace Corps volunteer_...there, her fingers curl, nails leave half-moon dents in the glossy paper. That's wrong. There's no would-be about it. Barney was accepted. He would have gone, would have done the whole two years. Nobody mentions that. Nobody ever mentions that. Not even Calvin. Missed opportunity there.

The details of the trial, she skips. She doesn't need to read those; she was there for the whole thing. The image of Barney on the witness stand, she still sees that, every day, in flashes more vivid than the photograph on the page. He has the same look there as in the AltruCell ID, maybe not as fresh, not as new. Maybe not the same, exactly -he's better at hiding it, for one thing, from people who aren't her- but that flash of uncertainty in his eyes, the determined set of his jaw he uses to make up for it. She can't put those two pictures next to each other, not until she gets home and Barney takes his copy out of the wrapper. The pictures are on opposite sides of the same page. Opposite each other. Even an origami master couldn't fold this page to put them side by side.

She skims the rest. She knows how these articles go, knows how Calvin writes. Closing paragraph contrasts with the opening and reinforces the topic. He doesn't disappoint. Former barista from Staten Island, now on the cover of _Newsiverse_. The dapper corporate executive, currently entertaining an array of professional opportunities, contrasts with the kid who got his first suit off the clearance rack. The rejected college sweetheart has recently celebrated his first wedding anniversary, with WWN anchor, Robin Scherbatsky. This fact is underscored with a candid shot from their wedding reception, credited to Lily Aldrin. Barney's grin beams bright and wide as Robin leans in to accept the bite of cake he offers on the tines of his fork.

She works a fingernail through the paper and foil that cover the Lifesavers. There's no mention of the hundreds of women between Shannon and Robin, and there doesn't need to be. It doesn't have any bearing on the story. All-American boy overcomes hardship and heartbreak to bring down an evil corporation. Greg Fisher is in federal prison, and Barney Stinson has a hot wife, a corner office, and a luxurious apartment on the Upper East Side. She pops one Lifesaver out of the roll and into her mouth and makes her way through the foot traffic, headed for home.


	5. Swimming in This Strange Sea

2008

 _Nobody else gets to see her like this_. That's the only thought in Barney's mind as he scoops all eighteen copies of the _Manhattan Observer_ off the shelf of the newsstand and holds them close to his chest. It shouldn't be. He doesn't know where the thought comes from, but it's there. Paparazzi snapping pictures of questionably famous hot chicks in short skirts, who flash panties -or lack thereof- while exiting a cab is a time-honored New York tradition, and searching out said pictures is a time-honored Barney Stinson tradition, especially when the short skirt is combined with a plunging neckline, and there is active debate over whether there is an actual nip slip involved, or merely a conveniently placed shadow. He fishes his wallet out of his pocket with his free hand and thrusts a bill at the newsstand attendant.

He doesn't wait for change. He can't get _all_ of the papers. He knows that, but he can keep _these_ eighteen copies out of the wrong hands. Like the creepy old guy in the wraparound sunglasses; those would be wrong hands. Anyone that guy's age must have had a lifetime of chances to ogle hot girls, though, back in his day, ankles would have been the big erogenous zone. Definitely not up to the legs-for-days Robin's been packing beneath the business casual she wears at Metro News One. Controlled substances, those legs, only let out to play around carefully curated audiences, like Marshall, who's immune, or Lily, who's a chick. Like Ted. Ted doesn't need a copy of the _Observer_. Ted's seen Robin's legs all the way up and then some. Same with her cleavage and adjoining regions. Ted's seen everything. He doesn't need a picture. A man doesn't forget when he's seen the ultimate glory of Robin Scherbatsky in the altogether. What was that old Greek myth about the dude who looked directly at the sun and went blind? Or maybe that was Aesop. Or Papa Sid's navy buddy. It was somebody.

Barney's mind races ahead of him, maps out the next few blocks, recalls every newsstand, kiosk, bodega and drugstore between here and the bar. He can do that much. He'd do the same for any friend. It's in the _Bro Code_ , or it will be as soon as he can get to his laptop. _A bro will, at all times, purchase any and all copies of trashy tabloids depicting another bro in a compromising position, within a four block radius of the first bro's residence, place of employment and regular haunts, including, but not limited to: gyms, doctors' offices, coffee shops and/or houses, locations of twelve-step group meetings, businesses or entertainment venues frequented at least thrice weekly, bars, restaurants, and places of worship and/or higher learning, where applicable._

Under oridnary circumstances, Barney wouldn't allow the seat of his Dolce and Gabbana charcoal worsteds to touch the graffitti-covered plastic bench of a bus shelter, but this isn't an ordinary circumstance. It's Robin. He deposits the stack of newspapers on the seat next to him and flips the top paper open to page fourteen. There it is, start of the entertainment section, under the admittedly clever headline, "News Flash." Not a great picture, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's the _Observer_ , therefore black and white and grainy, but there is definitely panty and definitely cleavage. He's less sure about the shadow versus nip slip debate, and, though there happens to be a magnifying glass in his inside breast pocket at this very moment, his hand is not reaching for it. He suspects a sudden onset of paralysis.

That has to be the logical explanation. Exposure to Robin's deep cleavage and lacy panties, at the same time, has rendered him unable to move, only he _is_ moving, hands bypassing his brain to take action all on their own, like they're not even his. Which has often happened in the presence of scantily dressed females, sometimes the photographs of same, but not in this manner. One hand holds the page down flat, while the other grasps that very same page at the top and rips straight down, careful to keep a straight, clean edge. Sets the paper aside and moves on to the next, and the next, then the one after that, until he has a lap full of page fourteens and a neat stack of eighteen everything elses. He sets the stack of eighteen everything elses aside. He has no use for them. The page fourteens, he collates, then rolls into a tight a cylindrical shape as he can and tucks them inside his jacket.

He stands. Levels a challenging look at the skinny gray-haired woman in knockoff Chanel and fake pearls who stares at him over her bifocals, until she reaches one heavily-beringed hand for the paper on top of the pile and opens to a random page. That's better. Nothing to see here. Just a bro helping out another bro. He buttons the top two jacket buttons and struts on out of there like he rips pages out of newspapers like that and stuffs them inside his clothing every day. He has no idea what he's actually going to do with the pages, now that he has them, or the others he plans to acquire along the way. Burn them in the alley behind MacLaren's, maybe –Carl owes him a favor, anyway, for keeping the health inspector busy until the pigeon situation was resolved- or slap them down on the table in front of Robin, like a hunter returning victorious from the kill. She likes hunting. That should make her happy, a whole stack of pages with the picture that made her cheeks go red, made her cough on her drink and suggest the gang forget the whole evening. Her suggestion had prompted Lily to point out that at least Robin had the foresight to wear matching bra and panties, and asked if that meant she and her date had attended a private after-party, wink wink, nudge, nudge. Robin hadn't answered. Hadn't laughed. Hadn't even smiled. He wanted to see her smile. The pelts of her enemies, he could call these torn-out pages, if he presented them to her, with a dramatic gesture. Part of him wants to make an off-color segue into how he's pretty sure there is part of _her_ pelt visible in the lower right hand corner of the target area, and suggest that, in this case, the paper should be renamed the _Manhattan Observe-her_ , but another part of him, one he'd left for dead somewhere between the last time he walked out of Java Joint and the first time he walked into the AltruCell building, shuts that down.

This is Robin. His friend. His bro. Okay, _hot_ bro. Smoking hot bro, who could do a hell of a lot better than some jerk in last year's Ralph Lauren, who didn't have the common courtesy to exit the cab first, thus blocking his companion's person from prying eyes –and photographers- upon her exit, should an occasion like this occur. That's who's at fault here. He ducks into the Korean grocer on the corner and scoops up the seven copies they have on hand. Asks, in Korean, for the three Korean-language copies they have on hand as well. Sometimes, the content is different, especially in the entertainment section, but he's not taking any chances. Yes, thanks, he will take a bag.

He stuffs the original pages in there along with his new purchases. Gratefully accepts the compliments on how good his Korean is, how slight his American accent, and no, he's never lived in Seoul, but he has done business there. Finance. The bag is too tight to hold everything without straining at the seams, so he has to ask for another. Declines an offer of kimchee, because he has to get going. He's meeting a friend.

The grocer peers at the torn-out pages. Is Barney's friend in this paper? Maybe the grocer should keep one of the copies. Barney must be proud of his friend, to buy so many newspapers. What section? Business? The grocer holds the second bag back, waits for his answer.

Barney answers with a noncomittal sound that could mean anything, purely to get the bag. It's none of some random grocer's business why he's buying all these papers –though he doesn't say that part- and yes, he is proud of her.

The grocer's eyes glint at that _her_ , and Barney reaches for his wallet again, points at a random selection of pre-wrapped flowers, because that's the only way he's going to get out of here anytime soon. There's two more kiosks and a bodega he has a chance of hitting before the burning need for evening edition papers strikes the general public as a whole. He's committed now; every copy of the _Observer_ he can find, even though it isn't going to do any good, because there's the rest of Manhattan, the other boroughs, Westchester, home deliveries, the odd out-of-town subscription for sleazy Manhattanites-in-exile, and those who wish they were, but it's Robin. It's Robin.

He hates that he can't stop this for her, can't make the picture go away completely. Hates that he couldn't stop her from seeing it in the first place. Hates knowing that, no matter how many copies he buys and destroys, no matter how much the rest of the gang tries to get her on board with joking about it, that she's going to have that stupid one second of her life burned into her memory, forever. Hates that she's going to be interviewing the President someday, or walking the red carpet or be some talk show host's special guest, maybe the host herself -she'd be awesome at that- and somebody's going to think it's hilarious to bring up that one time a photographer saw her underwear.

By the time he circles around to the front entrance of the bar, he has to shrug out of his jacket, and roll back his sleeves. He's breaking a sweat, and his cuffs are ringed with black from rubbing against that much ink. He smells like newsprint. He should have kept the flowers, instead of handing them off to Carl, if only to mask the smell, but what the hell would he do with them? Give them to Robin? Then what? Give her some crap about beautiful flowers for a beautiful flower? She'd never go for that. She'd think he was lame, think he was up to something, and he isn't. He's being a bro. That's all it is.

He takes a moment to compose himself before he enters. Bounces on the balls of his feet, shakes out stiff shoulders, checks the drape of his jacket over his arm, his reflection in the window. Fixes his hair. Loosens the knot on his tie. Only then does he descend the stairs at a trot, tip his chin to Carl, who gives him a thumbs up, their debt now squared. He orders a beer for himself and a round for the gang before he makes his approach.

Robin has Ted's hoodie on now, zipped all the way up to her chin, hood pulled over her hair and face. There's a pile of tiny paper balls in front of her, where she's peeled the label off her beer bottle, possibly also Ted's. Lily is squished close to Marshall on their side of the booth, a basket of nachos in front of them, Ted and Robin occupy opposite ends of the other seat, each with their own plate of mozzarella sticks, likely from the empty red plastic basket in the middle of the table. Ted breaks off in the middle of some architecture fun fact blah blah. Barney appropriates a chair from a nearby table and moves Robin's plate of mozzarella sticks out out of the way. His stomach grumbles; he shouldn't have turned down the kimchee. He steals one of her mozzarella sticks, dips it in marinara sauce –this shirt is done for anyway, so drips don't matter- and shoves it, whole, into his mouth. Lily groans her disgust. Marshall thrusts a napkin at him. Ted notes, with a smirk, that Barney does not have a paper. Barney shrugs and helps himself to a nacho. Orange cheese drips onto the table. He mumbles something about newsstands being all out. Lily swats his hand. He pronounces the mozzarella sticks better than the nachos and steals Lily's napkin to wipe the cheese from his fingers. Asks if anyone else wants cheese fries.

Robin slumps farther down in the seat, her arms crossed. A grunt emanates from the depths of the hood. He takes that as assent and signals the waitress.

Lily rubs Robin's arm, and offers the consolation that, even if all of New York, most of New Jersey and parts of Connecticut got to see Robin's panty shot, Barney didn't. That has to make her feel a little bit better.

The hood falls back. Robin's lips -pale now, the lipstick worried off- twitch. Tilt. Curve. The pinch between her eyebrows fades. She pushes her hood-ravaged hair out of her face, and that's his moment. That's his cue to launch into a detailed description of the way her hair fell over her face in the picture, the pattern of the lace, both north and south, his best guess, by the tone of the grayscale, of what color the aforementioned underthings most likely were -aqua; he knows that dress, and it has to be aqua- how many inches of material and/or skin she was away from the picture not being able to be printed in a regular newspaper. It should be his cue.

He doesn't take it, doesn't do any of that. He shakes his head and takes a drink. Makes a joke about how missing out on that picture will be the one thing he will regret most when he lies on his deathbed. Ted and Marshall launch into a long, convoluted list of places, other than beds, where they expect Barney might die. He doesn't listen. He's too fixed on the way Robin settles back in her seat, takes a drink from her label-less bottle, jumps into Ted and Marshall's conversation with suggestions of her own. Sailboat. Gypsy caravan. Abandoned warehouse. Top of the ferris wheel at Priyapat amusement park, extra points for it being both abandoned and radioactive. Her brows flash upward, mouth slides into the first genuine smile he's seen from her all evening. He picks a chrysanthemum petal from the roll of his sleeve. Mission accomplished.

2013

 _Nobody else gets to see her like this. Like, nobody. Ever_. Not only the naked part, though Barney, standing beside the bed in their honeymoon suite, washcloth in hand, is wholeheartedly in favor of that. Other people _could_ see Robin naked, as in it's possible. Probable, even. Doctors, they could see her naked. Nurses, probably, maybe paramedics if the need arises. Masseusses, sure, estheticians who work south of the shoulders, but nobody who didn't specifically go to school for the express purpose of seeing people naked in a purely professional capacity. They don't get to see her like this, curled on her side, well away from the wet spot, knees drawn up, sheets bunched around her hip. The fan ruffles her hair, loose against the white of the oversized pillows, lifts it over crazy high cheekbones and straight brows. Her lips part. She makes that sleepy sound he hasn't decided what to call yet. It's not a sigh. It's not a snore. He doesn't know what it is, but he figures he has four or five decades to figure it out.

That sounds like a long time, but it isn't. Even three days into this whole marriage thing, he still hasn't wrapped his mind around the most basic of facts. Robin is his wife. It's more than a couple of rings and some words in a church and their names on a piece of paper. It's this. It's her, on her side, asleep, peaceful, content. She picked him. She feels safe with him. Happy with him. He wants a picture of her, exactly like this, but it's not okay to take pictures of sleeping naked chicks. Well, not anymore. Not that it ever was, even if they had signed the waiver, checked release box optional. The particular chick in question is his wife now, and pictures like that never stay private, so the best he can do is stay exactly where he is, take it all in, and remember everything for when the honeymoon is over and they have to go back to the real world.

Not that he hasn't come up with three and a half mostly feasible plans for the two of them staying in Belize permanently, but even he knows that's not how it works. They only get so much time here, where it's only the two of them, with no other people, no responsibilities. When they leave here, they have to go back to New York. Robin has to go back in front of the camera, back into everybody's living rooms and mobile devices. He has to go back to GNB, to boardrooms and conference calls, and the end of a fifteen-year-long play that will bring AltruCell to its end. They'll go back to New York, but Ted will be in Chicago, while Marshall and Lily finish getting ready to move to Italy. His mom is getting back together with James's dad. He's not sure where James and Tom are going to be when he and Robin get back, but they'll find out at the airport.

He gets it now, what it's like to have that one person who sees something nobody else sees, who sees the same things everybody else sees, and still wants him anyway. Still picks him. Still promises, in front of all their friends and families –famil _y_ , now- that she wants him, and only him, nobody else, for the rest of her life, or the rest of his, whichever comes first. Probaby his. He's older, not by much, but men don't tend to live as long, and men like him - he shuts that thought down as soon as it starts, becasue that's where Robin would stop him, tell him there are no men like him; that's why she married him. They've had this conversation. They'll proabably have it again. He can deal with that. What he can't deal with is the fear that, somehow, he's going to do something to ruin it all, not be good enough. Not be enough. _Do not screw this up_. His fist clenches around the dry cloth. _Do not._

Robin shifts in her sleep, stretches. Props herself up on one elbow. Opens her eyes only halfway. "Are you watching me sleep?"

A muscle tics in his jaw. "Um, no." Because that would be creepy. Or romantic. Mostly creepy, because Robin doesn't do romantic. Maybe taking a picture, in this case, would have been the less obessed-psychopath way to go here, but it's too late for that. He runs through a handful of possible explanations, because that's second nature now. He thought he heard her phone vibrate. Animals are doing it outside. _You're real. You're still here. You picked me_. None of those fit. "Boobs," he says at last, and gestures toward same.

She flops onto her stomach. "Sleepy boobs," she mutters into the pillow.

Nobody else gets to see her like this, either. He sets the washcloth down over the wet spot, then climbs in next to her, pulls the sheet over them both. She turns onto her side again, arm tucked under the pillow. He doesn't need a picture. He'll remember.

2017

 _Nobody else gets to see her like this_. Four years in, and Barney should be used to it by now, coming home to find Robin perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, dressed in a pair of his boxers, white tank bright against tanned skin, hair piled on top of her head, speared with a yellow pencil, concentration compressing her features as she scowls at the image files open on her laptop screen. There's a legal pad, again, one of his, by her right hand, half a glass of orange juice to her left. He drops his keys into the dish by the door to their apartment, mail tucked under his arm, bag from their favorite bagel place clutched in one hand. He doesn't smell coffee, which means she hasn't made it.

"Barn?" That's his name now, when it's just the two of them, when she's working but trying to pretend she isn't. "Have you seen my pencil?"

He circles around her, plucks the pencil from her hair and hands it to her. Her hair falls to her shoulders. She hasn't showered yet, either, the scents of sleep and old sex blended with pencil shavings and traces of smoke.

She takes the pencil from him, scowls, crosses out two lines on the legal pad with firm, repetitive strokes. Her knuckles whiten. She lets out a huff and pushes back from the counter. The pencil drops to the floor. Tense lines cross her forehead. Her nostrils flare. She shoves both hands into her hair and gives her scalp a vigorous scrub. She glances at the coffeemaker, maple leaf and solid black mugs set next to it, as though she's only now noticed its silence. "Crap. Five minutes, I promise. Bustelo or Death Wish?'

"Nah, I got it. Former professional, right here." He sets the mail behind the laptop, and the bag from the bagel place a few inches away from the legal pad, close enough to steal a look. The twitch of her upper lip tells him she's caught him. "What? Like I'm not going to peek? Haaaave you met me?"

That does the trick. Her mouth ticks up at one corner. "It's a stupid story. The job is down to me or Sandy Rivers, and the only thing that's going to decide it are these stupid segments we have to produce, without any gaurantee they'll even be aired. It's not fair. Sandy gets to talk about performance enhancing drugs-"

"Totally not fair." Barney opens the bag. The scents of warm bread, cinnamon and maple fill the air. "Dude can't get his sandy river flowing without the wonders of modern pharmeceuticals. True story. I saw them in his gym bag." He takes out two bagels wrapped in waxed paper and consults the shorthand scribbled on each. _CinRasMap_ , that's hers. "Cinnamon raisin, with maple cream cheese."

Robin takes the bagel and lifts the fold of waxed paper for an experimental sniff. "Not that kind of performance enhancing." The her mouth hasn't un-ticked, though. He'll count that as a win. "Professional atheletes and pressure to perform." She holds up one finger to silence the words that even now dance on the tip of his tongue. "Sports, not sex. Traditionally male topic, even though female athletes face the same pressures, sometimes even more, and then the same producers give me kiddy beauty pageants." Her jaw sets firm. "He gets access to big name sports stars and the pharmeceutical industry, and I get little girls in isn't fair."

Barney's brow furrows in thought. "Common theme of competition there." But that's not it, and he knows it, and she knows she doesn't have to explain. Little girls in tiaras and fancy dresses and talent competitions, when Robin had to wear boys' clothes and spend her weekends in duck blinds and hockey rinks. She'd have crushed those other girls. Crushed them. He checks the carafe and reservoir on the coffeemaker by rote. This, he can do in his sleep, and often has. He grabs the first bag of coffee beans from the overhead cabinet without looking. "Turn it around."

Waxed paper rustles. Robin plunks back down on the stool and separates the two halves of her bagel. "How?" she asks, around a mouthful of bagel. The single word disintegrates into a moan of pure satisfaction. Definitely worth going an extra two blocks for the way her eyes close as she takes another bite.

He measures out the beans, directly into the grinder, his attention fixed on Robin. Nobody takes pictures of her like this, messy hair, no makeup, mouthful of bagel, cream cheese on her chin, eyes bright and focused on hm. It still thrills him, that focus, that look she never gives anybody else. "Find a different angle. You know Sandy Rivers; he'll go for the same angle everybody else does. He'd never think about the female athletes. Do they have those pageants for dudes?"

This time, she swallows her bite of bagel and wipes the cream cheese from her chin before she answers. "Some boys do compete, but they don't have their own-" She breaks off there, sets the bagel down and returns to her laptop. Her fingers tap across the keys. She reaches for the pencil that isn't there, hops off the stool to retrieve the pencil from the floor. "Any important mail?" she asks, but her attention is all on the screen and the legal pad. The pencil moves over the paper in quick bursts.

The coffeemaker gurgles. Rich brown coffee drips into the maple leaf mug. "Postcard from my dad and Cheryl at Carhenge, checkup reminder from your optician, and I might need some personal time with the new issue of _Gent_. Chick on the cover is super hot." He sets both magazine and coffee down in front of her, accompanied by a wink and a click of his tongue.

Robin grabs the magazine, rips off the plastic cover, and there she is, in full pinup mode, peplum blouse and pencil skirt, perched on the edge of scuffed-up metal desk that could have come from an old private eye movie, prop pistol in hand, smoldering gaze aimed at the camera. At him, because he'd been standing behind the photographer, throwing out lines to make her laugh, make her smile, make her blush. "I can't believe I let you talk me into an interview for _Gent_." She cocks her head, tucks her hair behind her ear, brushes her fingers over the image.

He flashes her a grin. "Never doubt my powers of persuasion. The focus may be men's fashion, but the typical _Gent_ reader has his finger on the pulse of the issue that shape our world."

"That's one place their fingers go." She flips to the table of contents and rifles through the pages. "I swear that writer was trying to get in my pants the whole interview."

Barney slips one arm about her waist. His hand settles on the sleek curve of her hip. "Excuse you, _was trying_ to get into your pants?"

Her head rests on his shoulder. "Okay, did get into my pants as soon as camera guy left." The glossy pages flip past until she finds the page she wanted. This time, she's behind the desk, legs propped up on the blotter, seamed stockings and ankle strap sandals stealing the show from the vintage typewriter and prop bottle of hooch. She traces one finger along the typewriter font that spells out title and byline. " _Private Eyes on Robin Scherbatsky_ , by Barney Stinson. How's it feel, to see your name on a real article?"

They don't move for a moment, don't look at each other, all their attention focused on the words and image. That's _them_ on that page, part of her and part of him. Blogs and columns are one thing. This is something else. "Feels good," is all he can manage. Maybe this is what it feels like when Ted or Marshall see one of their kids for the first time. Probably. Kind of. It doesn't matter. He reaches around her, to turn the page, where a shot of the two of them, him posed off to the side, with pen and steno pad at the ready, sleeves rolled back, her line of sight fixed on his exposed forearms. "Do you want to," he makes himself ask, "read this by yourself first?"

She extricates herself from his embrace, leaving him holding the magazine. "You mean without the creepy writer guy literally over my shoulder?"

"Yeah."

Her lashes lower, fingers close around the length of his tie. Give it a gentle tug toward the bedroom they'd left only a couple of hours before. "Later, but bring the magazine."


	6. Somebody That I Used to Know

2017

"Who's Maxwell Porter?" Robin holds the manila envelope between two fingers, apart from the rest of the mail, and closes the apartment door. She deposits her keys in the usual place, and crosses to the breakfast bar.

Barney, at the counter, on his laptop, shrugs, his attention on the screen, half filled with words. "I don't know. Maybe that artist guy Lily likes? The one who's all about _saturation_?" He drags it out, each syllable distinct. Backspaces. Squints at the screen. "If she wants us to go see that show again, tell her no. That is three hours out of my life I am never going to get back."

Robin perches on the other stool and deposits the rest of the mail on the counter. "That's Maxfield Parrish. This is Maxwell Porter." She tilts her head, angles so that a fraction of the screen is in her line of sight. Lowers her lashes so he can't tell she's peeking. Leans in a little, so he'll be distracted with a clear view down her shirt if he does. She doesn't see her name, at least not yet. Her best guess for this chapter's topic is locker room etiquitte. Boring. The other envelopes sort themselves, into piles of his and hers, all with printed, computer generated addresses, names of recipients framed in clear plastic windows. Even the magazines, in their protective wrappers, look untouched by human hands. Not this one. Maxwell Porter has written names and addresses, destination and return, by hand, black permanent marker on manila. The bulk of the contents shifts under Robin's touch.

"Who's he with?" Barney's fingers tap out a rapid tattoo on the keyboard. His face creases with pleasure. He hits save, then return. "If it's another offer from Harmon Coulter, toss it. I'm not changing my mind."

"I don't think he's from anybody." Robin turns over the envelope. Something -no, some things- shift inside. There's no corporate logo on the back. "I tihnk it's just the one guy. Fan mail?"

That's enough to get Barney's full attention. He closes the laptop and pivots on his stool. Lines about eyes and mouth crinkle. "Awesome." Interest sparks his eyes as he motions for her to hand over the envelope. "Give."

She isn't ready. She's read the comments on his blog, and he's forwarded her select emails. This would be the first paper lettter, the first time somebody sat down with pen and ink and stamp. That's a good thing, but something's off. She scans the envelope again. Maybe Maxwell Porter is older? The _Mr_. in front of Barney's name would fit with that, more formal, maybe respectful, even. There's no title on the return addres, though, no _Mr_. or _Dr_. or even _Ms_. The shapes that slide within the envelope feel square, the middles thicker than the outside. Polaroids? Girls sending Barney Polaroids isn't anything new, though it hasn't happened for a while, and _Gent_ isn't a magazine a lot of women read. The thought of guys sending Barney Polaroids isn't any more appealing. _Gent_ readers would know Barney is married. That's when the missing piece clicks into place. "Wouldn't fan maiil be sent to the magazine? Did you tell readers where you live?"

Barney's brow pinches. "No. I didn't. I guess it would." He's answering backwards, but she follows him. She watches the subtle shifts in his features, tracks the way the wheels in his mind turn at a dizzying speed, making connections, raising and discarding possbilities. He pushes back from the counter by inches, face compressed in concentration. "Maxwell Porter." He repeats the name, his sights set on the envelope but not the words and numbers written across it. He'll take those into consideration in a moment. "Maxwell Porter. Max Porter? Maxie Porter?" He shakes his head at that. Not Maxie. Not female. "Max. Porter." He shrugs. "The only Porter I know -well, knew- is Shannon." A muscle twitches in his jaw. He's trying to dismiss the idea, but it won't be released. "Her parents, too, I guess. What's the address?"

Robin hands him the envelope. She doesn't want to hold it anymore, because she remembers the story. Barney slept with Shannon. Shannon's son is named Max. Her stomach sours. The floor tilts beneath her. She grabs on to the edge of the counter and wills her breathing to remain even. Tries to do the math, but the numbers won't stay still. They jumble around in her head. Barney dated Shannon for five years. They broke up when he was twenty-three. Those numbers aren't the ones she needs. She could reach his laptop if she stretched, open it, get a calculator or a calendar. Soemthing that would rein the numbers in for her, stop the pulse of anxiety that thunders through her head. Maxwell Porter would be a teenager, right? A teenager who sent a manila envelope with Polaroids in it, to his mom's ex-boyfriend. She doesn't want to know the reason for that, because she can only think of one.

"Hey." Barney drops the envelope. He vacates the stool long enough to put one arm around Robin's shoulder, give her a reassuring squeeze and press his lips to her hair. "I know what you're thinking. That's not it. Max was already three the first time I slept with Shannon. The only time. Even _I'm_ not _that_ good.." His arm falls away as the joke falls flat. It isn't funny, literally or figuratively. She looks up at him. The color drains from his face. "You open it," he says on a whisper, his voice hoarse.

She slips from the stool, because he needs it more, and runs a fingernail under the envelope's flap. This time, the number comes all too easily. _Twelve_. If anything came from the one time Barney slept with Shannon, that baby would be twelve now. _Twelve_. Old enough to write their own letter, but maybe not allowed? Maybe scared enough to ask their big brother to do it for them? The possibility weighs heavy on her. She glances over her shoulder, to the door, as though she expects some blond, blue-eyed preteen to magically appear, toss down a backpack and ask if the giant screen has Xbox. Boy or girl, it wouldn't matter; he'd be there. Physically, financially, whatever he could, whatever Shannon would allow. Allow, like she'd had any right to keep something like this from Barney for twelve years and then spring it now, for whatever reason. Robin doesn't care about the reason. She rips the flap clean off and drops it to the floor, shakes out the contents. One folded piece of paper -yellow legal pad, no, no, no- four Polaroids and a strip from a photo booth. The pictures all land face down. She swallows. "Pictures or letter first?"

"Letter." He buttons his top collar button and tightens his tie. Of course he's going to want to face news like this with as much of his armor in place as he can. They both turn their heads toward the suit jacket draped over the arm of the couch. She'll get it for him if he asks. He doesn't, only settles into position, back straight, jaw set firm.

Robin, too, prepares herself. she open the single fold of the single page, but doesn't look at it yet. She needs a moment. She's read worse things, with less notice; natural disasters, terror attacks _, American Idol_ results that were total bullshit, but never to an audience that mattered more. Never to him. Part of her doesn't want any role in this, doesn't want to be the one to divide his life into before and after this way, doesn't want to make him imagine all the school plays he missed, all soccer games or dance recitals, all the Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easters, all the birthdays, even though he was right there in the same damn city, and would have dropped everything.

She stops herself there. This isn't what he needs. He needs the same thing any viewer -she hates to think of him that way, but that's the only way she can get through this- needs. He needs the facts, related calmly and without bias. He needs to draw his own conclusions. She can't do that for him, but she'll do it with him. She imagines herself telling the twelve year old they do have Xbox and offering...what? Milk and cookies? Is that what twelve-year-olds like? Maybe pizza? Butterscotch? If the kid were twenty-one, she could point to the liquor cabinet and be done with it, but there's a while to go before that.

"Robin?" Barney's voice pierces the fog that circles her brain. "Is it bad?'

"No." She decides it won't be bad, becasue it can't. They'll take care of it, the two of them. He won't go through this alone; he has her for that, for anything. _For better or worse, for richer or poorer_. Orthodontia, though that'll be pocket change if the kid has Stinson teeth, college fees, back child support; _worse_ and _poorer_ could definitely come into play here _, poorer_ , especially if the kid has Barney's fashion sense. "Really ready?"

"Really ready." One corner of his mouth twitches. He's not ready, but she'll give him this one, call it wishful thinking instead of a lie.

For the first time, she allows herself to focus on the actual letter. Generic blue ballpoint, in carefully formed cursive, fills only half of the page. Too short to hold something as big as announcing Barney's paternity of a preteen. This throws her for a moment, but she's trained for times like this, and the training takes over. " _Dear Mr. Stinson_ ," she reads, in the same voice that announces the day's events five times each week, " _My name is Maxwell Porter. You can call me Max_. That's in parentheses," she adds, and waits for his nod before she continues. " _I read_ Gent _every month, at my dad's house, but that's not why I'm writing. We have a mutual acquaintance in Shannon Porter Gonzalez_ -" She stops there.

"Gonzalez," they both say at the same time. No jokes follow.

There's nothing else to do but continue. "- _-your classmate at Cornell, and my mother_." Classmate, only that, not girlfriend, not first love, not would-be fiancee, not girl-who-broke-your-heart-so-thoroughly-that-the-person-who-loved-her-had-to-figuratively-die, but Max Porter wouldn't know that part. That isn't anything any decent kind of mother would tell her kid, but maybe Shannon isn't any decent kind of mother, especially not if she's making her own kid drop the bomb. Only there isn't any bomb. The kid is trying, hard, to sound like a grownup. He kind of sucks at it. She skims over a couple of lines of linguistic fumbling, then sets the paper down. It costs too much to watch the uncertainty flicker across Barney's face every time Max hits another set of parentheses. "They're moving to Barcelona for a year for Javier's work. Max's stepfather," she adds, in case Barney didn't already pick up on that. "Max found these pictures while packing. He thought you might want to have them." She slides the pictures across the counter to him, and she waits.

Barney doesn't touch the pictures at first. Doesn't say anything. He stares at the backs of the pictures, long enough that Robin isn't sure if she's done the right thing. She pushes the letter in his direction as well. His hand hovers over the closest picture. Robin doesn't have anything to worry about. That's her ring on his finger. She's the one who woke up next to him, while Shannon, presumably, woke up next to Javier, but her throat still constricts when Barney turns the picture face-up. "Winter formal, freshman year." He turns the picture so she can see.

She shouldn't laugh, but it's funny. Shannon looks like a Disney princess, puffy pink sleeves on her gown, sparkly bow in her hair, and there's Barney, a string bean in a rented tux, long enough, but too big. He has his full height, but hasn't filled out yet. Still has a baby face. The tips of his hair are still dark with dye from his goth days. He has his arm around Shannon's waist, her head on his shoulder. The camera caught him in mid-blink, but he doesn't look like he cares. His smile is too wide. Giant glittery snowflake shapes dangle behind them on silvery strings, against a midnight blue background etched with gold and silver stars. "Winter Wonderland theme?"

"Yeah. Original, right? Decorating committee sucked."

"Were you on it?"

He drops the picture. "Yes. Shannon's idea. This was our big night, the culmination of all of our efforts. I cut out half of those snowflakes. I think I hung all of them."

Robin turns the picture so the image faces her. "What did Shannon do?"

"Supervised."

"Figures." Girls with bows like that never hung their own stars. _Shannon, you moron_. He'd been in love with her, so stupidly, obviously, in love with her, that he'd do anything. Nix the goth look, hang the stars for her, follow her anywhere. _Javier Gonzalez, you have some big shoes to fill_. "Good time, though?"

His mouth tilts, his grin now a full version of what was only promised at eighteen. Warmth pools in her gut. "It was."

She knows the nuances of his voice enough to pick up on what he doesn't say. He doesn't want to tell her everything, which makes her want to fish for it. She rests both arms on the counter and leans in, her eyes narrowed, so she can take in every microexpression. "I think somebody made a move and somebody else shot them down."

The pink tips of his ears tell her she's right. "She didn't want to mess her hair, okay? Also, that was a very confusing dress." He turns over the other three pictures in quick succession. Harvest festival, spring musical, graduation. Floppy hair, baseball cap, ponytail. An array of oversized shirts and goofy smiles, Shannon in hippie princess mode the whole damn time. Robin has an urge to grab a red permanent marker and draw hearts around the edges of each picture, because they might as well be there anyway. He holds each one in turn, gives it his full attention for a few seconds, then sets it aside.

He hesitates before he takes the photobooth strip. Shoots Robin a questioning look. "You don't have to-"

She cuts him off. "I want to. You were cute."

"I was not _cute_." The words drip with disdain. His ears are still pink.

She places one finger on the graduation picture and draws it closer. "Kinda like the ponytail. Think you'd ever-" She reaches out, her target the close-cut hair at the nape of his neck.

He drops the picture and swats her hand away. "Not a chance." He's laughing now, his heart-eyes only for her, as he turns over the strip. Four black and white pictures, because that's how these things work. Barney and Shannon, heads close together, blond hair against blonde hair. The first shot is all too serious. The second shot has them both wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Shannon hides her face behind a giant lollipop in the third one, while a pair of comically oversized sunglasses obscure half of Barney's face. Barney tries to cover the fourth picture with the pad of his thumb, but he's too late. They're kissing in that one, Barney and Shannon, happy kissing, innocent, young-love kissing that at least one of them honestly thought was going to go on forever. She nudges his thumb away from the image.

They're not bad pictures, any of them, and she doesn't begrudge him the memories. "Where was this one?"

"Coney Island." His voice sounds farway, as though he's slipped back there for the space of a heartbeat. He taps the third picture with one finger. "That was a fun day." He doesn't offer any details, but places the strip with the Polaroids before he sets them aside. "I can't believe she kept these. She could have thrown them out."

"They're good pictures. Are they good memories?"

Barney considers the stack of pictures. "Pretty good ones. I guess that's reason enough, but why did her kid go through the trouble of sending them to me?"

"Read the letter. Third paragraph, second line." Robin taps the appropriate spot on the paper and edges it toward him until he takes it in hand.

A slow, steady amusement spreads over his features. "Javier has a problem with Shannon keeping these pictures because I'm in them? Sucks to be Javier. How insecure is that?" His chest expands, shoulders set back, before the uncertainty returns. "Unless you'd rather I don't keep them, either."

Robin takes in a breath. It's not that she likes seeing pictures of him, happy with soembody else, but that somebody else isn't in his life anymore. She is. If she had to take every picture of her with Ted out of their photo albums, they'd be ripping out a bunch of pages. "Pictures are better than a kid, rght?" It's quiet after that. Too quiet. "Did you want it to be-"

"No. God, no. I love it, just us. Just us is perfect."

Relief floods her. Not that she'd expected to hear him say he wished he did have a seret love child. She turns so she's directly beside him, her fingers threaded through his hair. "I like just us, too. Are you going to let Max know you got the pictures?"

Barney's face compresses in thought. His fingers drum against the closed laptop. "I don't know." He doesn't have to elaborate. All the variables are right there on the surface, every muscle tic, every blink and twitch. He's never met Max Porter. Hasn't spoken to Shannon since the hooked up when Max was a toddler. Maybe Shannon wants the pictures back, no matter what Javier says. Maybe Javier Gonzalez should man up and mind his own business. Maybe he should take Shannon to Coney Island. Maybe getting into somebody else's family squabbles wasn't the best idea in the world. "I could send him a signed copy of the book," Barney says at last, "To Max-Thanks for writing. Stay awesome. Sign my name and that's it?"

Robin nods her approval. Plausible deniability saves the day once again. "Only one thing I'd add." Robin slips her hand under his and lifts the laptop screen. "Finish writing it first. Publishers like that."

The computer screen flickers to life. Barney loosens his tie. He swallows. "Are you sure there was nothing from Harmon Coulter in there?"

"Positive." She scoops the pictures and Max's letter back into the envelope and sets them atop the stack of Barney's mail. He'll decide what to do with them when he's ready. "Finish the chapter, and you can help me look at this lingerie catalogue." She dangles the plastic-covered catalogue in front of the screen for only a second, before she heads for the bedroom, to the sound of furious typing.


End file.
